Posts Tagged ‘courts’

This order SC10-2101 (as corrected) from the Florida Supreme Court mandates email service as of September 1, 2012 in civil, probate, small claims, and family law divisions of the trial and appellate courts. Email service in criminal, traffic, and juvenile divisions will be required as of October 1, 2013. Detailed instructions, including mandatory and optional items are included in the order, but it will take some time to sort out the new obligations imposed.

I would recommend that attorneys reevaluate how they handle “junk” email to ensure they receive proper notice. It is permissible to include secondary email addresses which can be monitored by an assistant or perhaps by a litigation support specialist on a firm wide basis, to ensure receipt of service is properly logged and notated in the firm’s case file.

The Court also in SC11-399 mandated electronic filing (e-filing) procedures for all documents filed in Florida Courts pursuant to Rule 2.525, starting with the civil, probate, small claims, and family law divisions of the trial courts, as well as for appeals to the circuit courts in these categories of cases, on April 1, 2013, except as may be otherwise provided by administrative order. E-filing will be required in the criminal, traffic, and juvenile divisions of the trial and appellate courts, on October 1, 2013, except as may be otherwise provided by administrative order. Additional details can be found on the Florida State Courts website. One important detail to be aware of is that even though service is deemed complete when the email is sent, e-mail service is treated as service by mail for the computation of time, as opposed to being treated like a fax.

Technology continues to play an increasing role in the practice of law, and Florida is moving towards the Court’s stated goal of “of a fully electronic court system.” I continue to believe that the ever growing prevalence of tablet use by lawyers will also cause paper to become less common in the court room. These changes will make it easier to keep all of your documents in electronic format, because that is how they will be need to be sent and received.

I wonder if a taxpayer would have standing to sue over this or is a non justiciable issue because it is a political question? Further what protection does the judicial branch have from being constrained due to a lack of funding? Can it be rendered moot by the executive and legislative branches refusing to find the judicial branch? Unfortunately, today I have more questions than answers.
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Judges in Florida and New York are warning that budget cuts could have serious consequences for courts in their states. Circuit chief judges in Florida discussed a plan this week to keep courts operating if Florida Gov. Rick Scott does not approve an emergency loan by Friday. Under the plan, courts will be closed for four days next week and 10 days in May, according to the Orlando Sentinel, the St. Petersburg Times and the Miami Herald. The St. Petersburg Times outlines other measures in the plan: eliminating case managers and senior judges handling the mortgage foreclosure backlog, laying off traffic court hearing officers and moving their cases to other judges, and stopping funding for interpreters and transcripts. Florida courts need 50 million to keep operating through June 30. In New York, the state’s chief justice is also warning about…